The Community Fund program subsidizes activities that expand upon an NPN Performance Residency or Creation Fund by deepening relationships between NPN Partners, Artists, and communities. The Community Fund allows NPN Partners to take risks, implement new programs, forge new relationships and/or diversify their connections.

Link to the Project Profiles section, which contains stories on Community Fund and other NPN-subsidized projects.

FY16 Summer Community Fund Awards

Florida Dance — Tampa, FLTitle: Expansion of AXIS Dance Company Performance ResidencyDescription: Florida Dance Association will expand the AXIS Dance Company’s Performance Residency through a series of movement workshops for children 5 and up, with and without physical, cognitive, developmental disabilities, and Veterans with Spinal Cord Disorders at the VA Hospital. A two-day teacher training for educators and experienced artists with disabilities who are interested in developing their teaching skills in leading physically integrated dance in an inclusive and supportive environment. Florida Dance/AXIS Dance Company aims to empower participants by providing an inclusive, accessible and challenging forum for people with and without disabilities, to create and express through dance, inspire participants to engage in further fitness and physically integrated dance opportunities, and increase physically integrated dance skills of people with disabilities by providing professional dance training opportunities that can lead to viable employment opportunities.NPN Subsidy: $5000

Highways Performance Space and Gallery — Santa Monica, CATitle: Queer ExchangeDescription: Transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey – in partnership with local partners Patrisse Cullors (co-founder of Black Lives Matter) and trans performance artist D’Lo – will organize and conduct a two-day creative residency designed to initiate community across artificially and socially constructed identity divides for our LGBTQ community. A second workshop facilitated by an established performance artist will develop these new works in a second two-day intensive workshop. The project culminates in a low-tech presentation of the works in Highways’ Behold Queer Festival in May 2016. A panel discussion will follow the presentation.NPN Subsidy: $4000

Junebug Productions, Inc. — New Orleans, LATitle: Expansion of Soundtrack ’63 Performance ResidencyDescription: Junebug Productions will expand upon the presentation of Soul Science Lab’s Soundtrack ’63 to incorporate local musicians and poets, featuring the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra. They will also facilitate a community workshop “Singing for Movement Building” that will focus on the role that singing has played historically in organizing and movement building in African American communities, with a particular focus on the use of Freedom Songs during the Civil Rights Movement.NPN Subsidy: $3800

Links Hall — Chicago, ILTitle: Tea TourDescription: The Tea Tour is a series of community dialogues intended to transcend cultural divides between and among veterans, Muslims and people of all faiths, immigrants, activists, artists and the general public. The goal of the community events is to connect these communities with Links Hall’s presentation of the Tea Project. This Community Fund grant will allow Links to create a series of events outside of the walls of Links Hall that will expand Aaron Hughes’ NPN Performance Residency. We will directly connect with veterans, refugees, and activist communities through organizations already working with these demographics using the essential elements (story telling, food, and conversation) of the social art practice built by Aaron Hughes, Amber Ginsburg and their collaborators. This public series will be used as our outreach tool welcoming these communities into the immersive, healing, artistic activities, and performances being constructed at Links Hall.NPN Subsidy: $4500

On the Boards — Seattle, WATitle: Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance’s “SHORE”Description: Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance’s SHORE puts movement, dance, and art at the center of community building, gathering audiences together and emphasizing who we are and who we are with. The performances at On the Boards (OtB) are accompanied by four equally important elements: 1) Community Action, a day of hands-on workshops including artists, audiences, community members, and our partner the Kayaktivists, who protest on the water. This will connect community members to each other and our environment; 2) Story, in which local Native American authors read work at our partner Richard Hugo House; 3) Feast, which connects attendees to each other through shared recipes and stories of personal history. This will take place at the Duwamish Tribe’s Longhouse, Daybreak Star Cultural Center or the Community Center at Golden Gardens Park; and 4) Community Artists, local dancers and singers who will perform on stage.NPN Subsidy: $4500

The Theater Offensive — Boston, MATitle: The Queer Body – Exploring Narratives of HIV/AIDS Experiences Through Storytelling and MovementDescription: In anticipation of Sean Dorsey’s upcoming residency of his piece “The Missing Generation,” The Theater Offensive will engage community members – specifically transgender elders and youth, as well as people of color and those in dance communities – in a dialogue around HIV/AIDS. These activities will deepen the discussion of how HIV/AIDS affects these communities, both historically and today, through a panel discussion and movement-focused activities.NPN Subsidy: $4000

The Community Fund is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).

FY15 Winter Community Fund Awards

Contemporary Arts Center — New Orleans, LATitle: Artist Exchange Field Trips for “How to Build a Forest”Description: The Contemporary Arts Center will present “How to Build a Forest” in October 2015 with outreach activities that focus on education and on cultivating inter-generational and African American audiences. The CAC will deepen activities by installing a “forest” for Artist Exchange classes with performing artists Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl and visual artist Shaw Hall. Using curriculum developed as part of a previous residency with Duke University, the teaching artists and a contracted park ranger will create an experience that will give participants an appreciation for Louisiana’s disappearing land resources. Each one-hour class will involve K-8 students, along with their parents and and chaperones and will take place within the installation. During the discussion, the Park Ranger will define terms and give statistics and specific examples of how these relate to conditions in Louisiana.NPN Subsidy:$4500

DiverseWorks — Houston, TXTitle:johnbrownDescription: DiverseWorks will partner with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston to present dance artist Dean Moss’s johnbrown work. The Texas premiere will occur during the Mitchell Center’s second annual citywide Counter Current performance festival. DiverseWorks intends to work with the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Teen Council and Project Row Houses’ Young Mothers program to find teenage volunteers to participate in the production and performance. Moss will work with each of the teen participants during his time in residence. He will structure their engagement as workshops, and talk to the teens about John Brown while they are helping to create the props for the performance.NPN Subsidy: $4,000

Su Teatro — Denver, COTitle:San Arte: Art HealsDescription: Tigertail Productions, Inc will expand artist George Yamazawa’s Performance Residency through a series of workshops for inner city teens that deal with racial profiling and sexual harassment in South Florida. Following these workshops teens will write and perform works based on this theme in a public presentation (a slam) June 2015. The teen winner of “Florida the Gunshine State” will have the opportunity to travel to Brave New Voices with the Tigertail WordSpeak team all expenses paid.NPN Subsidy: $5,000

Tigertail Productions, Inc. — Miami, FLTitle:Florida the Gunshine StateDescription: Tigertail Productions, Inc will expand artist George Yamazawa’s Performance Residency through a series of workshops for inner city teens that deal with racial profiling and sexual harassment in South Florida. Following these workshops teens will write and perform works based on this theme in a public presentation (a slam) June 2015. The teen winner of “Florida the Gunshine State” will have the opportunity to travel to Brave New Voices with the Tigertail WordSpeak team all expenses paid.NPN Subsidy: $5,000

FY15 Summer Community Fund Awards

Fusebox Festival — Austin, TXTitle:Luciana Achugar Workshop with Austin Dance CommunityDescription: Fusebox is inviting dance/choreographer Luciana Achugar to Austin to host a free, multi-day, workshop for up to 20 local dancers and choreographers 6 weeks before her NPN Performance Residency of OTRO TEATRO for the 2015 Fusebox Festival.NPN Subsidy: $4,700

Junebug Productions — New Orleans, LATitle:Expansion of Progress Theater ResidencyDescription: Building on Artistic Director Cristal Chanelle Truscott’s expertise in the history and performance of spirituals, this expansion of Progress Theatre’s residency will center around the use of singing in African American performance, traditions, organizing and movement building. Workshops prior to the residency will explore the connections between spirituals and Freedom Songs and the role they played in organizing in New Orleans and culminate in musical performances during the residency performances.NPN Subsidy: $4,000

Links Hall — Chicago, ILTitle: Blutopian Chicago: Inspiring a Citizenry of DancingDescription: To deepen the impact of Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming and inspire Chicago’s current and future devisers, Ananya Dance Theatre will open up its unique approach to company class to professional Chicago-based women artists with social practices and offer a weekend workshop for social justice-based youth ensembles and teaching artists to learn ADT’s tools to foster dance as civic action.NPN Subsidy: $3,000

On The Boards — Seattle, WATitle:Beware the DandelionsDescription: Beware of the Dandelions is a combination of design, music, architecture, and theater that functions as a performance, a workshop space, and a stand alone exhibition.NPN Subsidy: $3,500

Pangea World Theater — Minneapolis MNTitle: Porning the Planet Community ResidencyDescription: Raquel Almazan will come to Minneapolis one week prior to her residency in order to 1. Facilitate butoh and writing workshops with Latino/a and Somali artists in Pangea’s Lake Street Arts Corridor program. 2. A 3-hour long performance art workshop with young emerging artists from immigrant groups and 3. Working with the Twin Cities Immigrant Refugee and Battered Women’s Task Force and Breaking Free, she will conduct workshops with advocates who assist victims of trafficking and sexual violence.NPN Subsidy: $4,700

The Theater Offensive — Boston MATitle: Community Activities Model for River See ResidencyDescription: In conjunction with the strong community-rooted presentation of River See during its residency at The Theater Offensive in November, Sharon Bridgeforth will spend one week in Boston in October to engage with 40-50 neighborhood residents in a three-tiered model of community activities. Through story circles, a choral “play session,” one-on-one workshop intensives, and unique mentoring opportunities, Sharon will explore themes of migration, immigration, queerness, and the African/Latin diaspora with community members. The participants are invited to continue to explore these themes with follow up activities that will occur in conjunction with the residency.NPN Subsidy: $4,000

The Community Fund is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).

FY14 Winter Community Fund Awards

Asian Arts Initiative — Philadelphia, PATitle:National Asian American Theater Festival Artists’ Exchange and ShowcaseDescription: Local artists will engage with a diverse ensemble of solo artists, organized by Art2Action, to participate in a process to generate new work for the National Asian American Theater Festival and Conference in Philadelphia, October 8-12, 2014.NPN Subsidy: $3,000

Bates Dance Festival — Lewiston, METitle:The Missing Generation and the Source of Joy
Artist Sean Dorsey will conduct 2 one-week residencies (fall 2014 & spring 2015) to engage with members of the Maine LGBT and HIV/AIDS community and Bates College students to build connections among LGBT youth and adults, exchange knowledge and experiences, build a larger LGBT audience for BDF’s performance series. The residencies will also contribute to Sean’s research for “The Missing Generation and the Source of Joy.”NPN Subsidy: $4500

Fusebox — Austin, TXTitle: Karen Sherman: Inspiration Research ProjectDescription: During two trips to Austin before the Fusebox Festival, Karen Sherman will work with local artists (all disciplines) to explore the city in search of places where inspiration is made, physically and literally. The team of artists will visit Austin factories, co-ops, and studios in industries like technology, woodworking, and food to make observations, field recordings, and generate new thinking and ideas on the sources of inspiration.NPN Subsidy: $3000

Su Teatro — Denver, COTitle: PLACAS
Paul S. Flores will work with a small cohort of local youth who are either involved in gangs, transitioning out of gang affiliations or at-risk for gang activity. The project will support extended, intimate engagement and artistic exchange.NPN Subsidy: $4500

Tigertail Productions — Miami, FLTitle: Imminent
Tigertail Productions will offer a series of workshops for inner city teens that deal with pressing current issues in South Florida, particularly immigrant justice and climate change. Following these workshops teens will write and perform works in public presentations based on these two themes.NPN Subsidy: $3000

FY14 Summer Community Fund Awards

Columbia College Chicago, Center for Community Arts Partnership – Chicago, ILTitle:Viva la Soul PowerDescription: The Center for Community Arts Partnerships will expand a performance residency with The Peoples Cook, a performance art group that unites cross-cultural cooking and interdisciplinary art to promote well-being and healthy nutrition. Robert Karimi will work with EleVarte Community Studio, two Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District.NPN Subsidy: $4,200

Intermedia Arts – Minneapolis, MNTitle:Global Taxi DriverDescription: Leilani Chan will work with locally-based Twin Cities artists for one week prior to the premiere of Global Taxi Driver to more deeply engage the local community of taxi riders and drivers by sharing stories and building awareness around important issues of immigration in Minnesota.NPN Subsidy: $5,000

Painted Bride Art Center – Philadelphia, PA
Title:The Clothesline MuseDescription: Also a FY14 Creation Fund/Forth Fund recipient, the Clothesline Muse artists will bring a series of interactive and academic activities to Philadelphia’s Simon Gratz High School Master Charter, a school of more than 1200 students with no arts and culture programming.NPN Subsidy: $4,300

Pangea World Theater – Minneapolis, MN
Title:ALIENS Taco Truck/Hyphe-NATIONSDescription: As José Torres-Tama develops ALIENS: Taco Truck Theater Project with Pangea World Theater, for which he received a Creation Fund/Forth Fund award, he will engage participants in Pangea’s Hyphe-NATIONS project in converstions, workshops and theater-development activities. When he returns to perform the piece, the taco truck will also showcase an evening of work developed by Hyphe-NATIONS participants.NPN Subsidy: $3,500

The Theater Offensive – Boston, MA
Title:Gamification Experiment for Audience Description: TTO will collaborate with community allies to produce a community participation retreat. Over two days, community members will engage with 99% Stone artists in experimental gamification techniques, Theater of the Oppressed activities, and community dialogue to develop relevant and effective audience participation activities.NPN Subsidy: $4,500

The Community Fund is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), the MetLife Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

The National Performance Network, including the Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN), is a group of diverse cultural organizers and artists, working to create meaningful partnerships and to provide leadership that enables the practice and public experience of the arts in the United States.

Patterned after NPN's model performing arts program, the Visual Artists Network was launched in 2007 as a pilot, and in 2009 the program was formally established through the induction of the VAN Partners, fifteen leading contemporary arts organizations from across the United States.

The boundaries between the performing and visual arts are more than blurred: "Performance art" on the stage and "installations" in a gallery. Using the residency model of a touring performing artist, VAN is a way for the visual artist to engage in community.

Patterned after NPN's model performing arts program, the Visual Artists Network was launched in 2007 as a pilot, and in 2009 the program was formally established through the induction of the VAN Partners, fifteen leading contemporary arts organizations from across the United States.

The boundaries between the performing and visual arts are more than blurred: "Performance art" on the stage and "installations" in a gallery. Using the residency model of a touring performing artist, VAN is a way for the visual artist to engage in community.